"I Can Make You Thin" Book Review on Amazon

[DrMartinRussell]

IMHO - I think this book by Paul McKenna should get more attention.

The Amazon review I gave is a bit long but complete...

"For almost 2 years now I have been handing this “I Can Make You Thin” book and ‘mind-reprogramming’ CD to every patient who comes to me to lose weight, or who is caught up in the mentality of diets, scales, cravings, or overeating.

At the risk of making this book seem overly simple, here are Paul McKenna’s 4 golden rules…
1. When you are hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you want (not what you think you “should”.)
3. Eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful.
4. When you are full stop.

I’ve seen other reviews that dismiss the 4 rules as just obvious common sense. I’m not sure what common sense they really mean since the rules conflict with the majority of weight loss approaches around. Rule 2 in particular certainly disagrees with the ‘common sense’ that I was taught as a medical doctor.

Even if the rules are common sense, McKenna needs to be given great credit for showing people HOW to live these habits. Hopefully you are buying this for the results, not just to have a fun read and a relaxing, new-wavy listen.

Yes, the title of “I Can Make You Thin”, the pose McKenna has on the front, and the text on the back are bit over the top, but the inside is less so. The book is refreshingly thin , jargon-free, and entertaining.

McKenna’s style also incorporates techniques such as tapping (TFT), hypnosis and NLP . Hypnosis is what first made Paul famous, and I’ve seen NLP Practitioners review this and say they knew all of these tricks before. In NLP terms Paul is saying that the Golden Rules are the “model” for being “naturally thin”. Just knowing all the techniques won’t help if you have the wrong model.

Importantly, you don’t need any of these techniques to apply the 4 golden rules and lose weight.

Most people can go the book & CD, discover the Aha moments, and get started on transforming their relationship with food and their weight straight away.

There might be a group of people that could eat according to the 4 rules and not be thin, but I agree with what Paul says. For myself, I’m yet to meet such a person.

I have counseled people who thought it didn’t work for them, but it turned out they hadn’t gotten the rules into their behavior, so here are some extra pointers…

* Just listening to the CD over and over doesn’t seem to be enough. The book plays a big part too. Expect to re-read the book at least once. You can succeed without the CD, so if it doesn’t suit you, no sweat.
* Don’t add more rules. Extra rules almost always conflict with the four golden rules. Must eat breakfast? No. Just eat when you are hungry. Have to eat only fresh food? Check you really want to eat it, and whether you might want to eat anything else a bit more. Etc, etc.
* Having trouble visualizing? Just act ‘as if’ you are visualizing, or on the CD just leave it to Paul.
* Don’t make exercise the focus. Improved fitness will improve your chances of living longer, but unfortunately the best research evidence is that exercise doesn’t help much in losing weight. Keep to the four rules, which are all about food and getting back in control.
* If you have a question or a difficulty, the answer is somewhere in the book. The information truly is comprehensive (unlike watching YouTube videos or reading this review.) Indeed this updated version covered the two or three remaining gaps I had found before, including the extra chapter which covers self-sabotage.

In summary, McKenna is not the only person to propose this way of eating, but his is the most accessible version I know about. His is also the most likely to reach out from the page and permanently change your thinking and your behavior, and thereby your weight.

You can buy his measly book just to prove Paul wrong

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So that is my review of “I Can Make You Thin” by Paul McKenna. If it was helpful I'd appreciate a vote to say so on Amazon...
Amazon.com: Profile For Martin Russell: Reviews

Unfortunately if you end up wanting to buy a new copy of this book there are none in Amazon US. You will need to go to Amazon UK here...
Amazon.co.uk: I Can Make You Thin (New edition - book & CD): Paul McKenna: Books

This might be part of why it hasn't taken off as well as I think it deserves :-(

Anyway, all other comments appreciated here too.

[Angela]

As I've mentioned before, I love Paul McKenna, particularly his hypnosis meditations.

Unfortunately, though, I Can Make You Thin was not effective for me (although I still love the hypnosis part.) The four rules made no difference for me, except for the eat consciously rule, which has me enjoying my food more.

It took dynamically changing WHAT I eat and how I exercise to lose fat and gain muscle.

I would still buy the book, though, just to get the CD.

[Fullcrum]

I love his positivity system. Good hypnosis stuff.

I think I made a post about how you should listen to what a food makes you feel like, and not just listen to taste but taste as well as your whole body. A more wholistic (as in "whole" and "full bodied") approach.

I don't need this, but it looks good.

The one thing I'd recommend is always trying new foods and diversifying your taste buds in the direction that you read about is best (fresh raw foods, for example). If you expand in the right direction you might find your tastes naturally transitioning. And that can only make you healthier.

After all, your tastes tend to be rather arbitrary, governed by what your culture, what you grew up with, and several innate human tastes like a propensity towards sweetness. So, in the spirit of conscious growth, expand them.

[DrMartinRussell]

Originally Posted by Angela

Unfortunately, though, I Can Make You Thin was not effective for me (although I still love the hypnosis part.) The four rules made no difference for me, except for the eat consciously rule, which has me enjoying my food more.

Hi Angela,

Could I get more details about this?

You mean that you didn't lose weight? Or do you mean that you were already eating that way? Or that you couldn't get the 4 rules into your behavior?

Originally Posted by Angela

I would still buy the book, though, just to get the CD.

His hypnosis CD / mp3 are the same overall structure so I'd pick the topic specific ones. Too bad he doesn't seem to have his free one available anymore.

Fullcrum - directed diversifying is an excellent additional point. Thanks.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by DrMartinRussell

Hi Angela,

Could I get more details about this?

You mean that you didn't lose weight? Or do you mean that you were already eating that way? Or that you couldn't get the 4 rules into your behavior?

I mean I did not lose weight, and I did not feel good while following the four rules. I found that eating when I was hungry meant that my eating times rarely matched up with my sweetheart's which caused us both some pain. Also, both my blood sugar and the operation of my metabolism are optimized when I eat every two or three hours whether I'm hungry or not. Waiting until I'm hungry caused me problems like crashing in the middle of my workout. Eating what I want rather than what I think I should eat, for me at least, means, again, choices that don't have me feeling optimally throughout the day.

I followed the rules precisely for 90 days, and lost not an ounce. Then I did my 6-week extreme makeover and lost 11 pounds and 2 dress sizes, and I felt really good the whole time. There have been some other really great advantages to revving up my metabolism with this new way of eating and exercising, including increased sex drive and my hair and nails look better, strangely enough.

His hypnosis CD / mp3 are the same overall structure so I'd pick the topic specific ones. Too bad he doesn't seem to have his free one available anymore.

You're right, and I love having the choice of several -- they all pretty much say the same kind of stuff, though. I got the free download the very last day it was available! That very weekend, they took it down and started up the U.S. I Can Make You Thin website. Good timing!

[DrMartinRussell]

Originally Posted by Angela

...Eating what I want rather than what I think I should eat, for me at least, means, again, choices that don't have me feeling optimally throughout the day.

I followed the rules precisely for 90 days...

Being a doctor who teach this to people I was interested to chat to you in much more detail Angela, but you didn't have any contact details to PM or phone.

Anyway, your experience with this fascinates me.

The "want" and "should" seems to be interesting comparison. The argument against "should" is that it is avoiding external rules. You seem to be talking about your own internal experience so that is a valid part of "want". The nuances are interesting, and important.

Thanks for your input Angela. I'd appreciate more - as I do with anyone else's comments from experience.

[Angela]

Originally Posted by DrMartinRussell

Being a doctor who teach this to people I was interested to chat to you in much more detail Angela, but you didn't have any contact details to PM or phone.

you can pm me here on the forums, just as you can any other member.

The "want" and "should" seems to be interesting comparison. The argument against "should" is that it is avoiding external rules. You seem to be talking about your own internal experience so that is a valid part of "want". The nuances are interesting, and important.

huh?

[DrMartinRussell]

Found out why I couldn't PM you before, Angela. I wasn't logged in! Head-slap moment.

You did McKenna's stuff meticulously for 90 days with no weight loss. That's important. My question, and yours at the time was, Why didn't it work?

There have been a handful of proper research studies into this type of "natural eating", and NONE of them have demonstrated weight loss. They have shown psychological improvements only. So when someone credible like you mentions this lack of result I am keen to know more to get to the bottom of this mystery.

As for the "huh?"

Where it says "Eat what you want (not what you think you should)"...

How do you decide what is a "want" v "should"?

I think Paul means as "want" = internal ie based on your own experience, and "should" = external ie based on someone else's experience.

So knowing from your own experience that you feel better eating certain foods is part of "want" that is suitable to follow, but automatically following an "eat low-fat" rule, for example, without checking on your own experience is not.

[Angela]

I think that even aside from any *shoulds* my *wants" are kind of multi-layered: there's what my body wants -- what I know it wants when I listen to it, like water-rich vegetables, and the other kind of want, like wanting the taste of a hamburger or ice cream or fish taco.

Only after I started this new eating program (a pretty disciplined and restrictive 6 or 7 meal a day plan) did my "body wants" begin to emerge powerfully. While I was still "addicted" to sugar and bread, etc., my body wants were pretty powerless in the face of my mouth wants.

Doc, I'll pm you a bit later about this -- it's hard to think about food or my stomach because I've got some intestinal discomforture going on today (maybe montezuma -- I just got back from Mexico.)

Thanks!

[DrMartinRussell]

Chat soon then.

All the best with your recovery!